Buttering up for Lions’ biz expertise
OCEAN Grove’s Monica Cavarsan will tomorrow be one of only four people to pitch at Melbourne’s first Lion’s Den.
The founder of boutique cultured butter-maker Lard Ass, Ms Cavarsan is pitching an idea for flavoured butter for popcorn.
“I just put it out there as an idea to jazz up your popcorn,” Ms Cavarsan said of her entry, subsequently judged a finalist for the Lion’s Den to be held at the Fine Foods Australia trade convention.
She pitched flavours such as black truffle, honey, maple rum and salted caramel butter.
Each finalist will get 15 minutes to pitch and receive feedback from a panel of industry experts.
Lard Ass’s fermentation process and small-batch churn makes for a tastier, creamier product, she said.
“We use a type of culture to ferment cream to bring about the lovely buttery taste that you enjoy,” Ms Cavarsan said.
After a background in corporate marketing, Ms Cavarsan started making homemade cultured butter in December and has since seen demand soar from 60 litres to 200 litres a week.
“It’s seven days a week at the moment,” she said. “I am making it through the week and selling it on weekends.”
Working with other artisanal producers in the Barwon region had been a great source of motivation for her business, she said.
The other three Lion’s Den finalists are Dining Experience, an app to help maximise nutritional intake in aged care, LeanPath, which monitors consumer food waste in commercial kitchens, and From Granny, which is scaling up its dumpling production business.